Balance and Symmetrical Development

Learn about using the OptoJump one-meter system to measure your march in place test with Olympic level accuracy. Read more about the importance of accurately measuring your students and athletes progress throughout their development."

"Balance of power" is the perfect term to describe a vital key to athletic performance.

In team sports, the coach wants every member of the team to be able to obtain optimal performance. This means we strive to make poor athletes good, good athletes great, and great athletes even better. This formula is especially effective at the high school level. Every school has a few great athletes on any team, so success is determined by how well the coach can improve the abilities of the less gifted players. This is why efficient and effective training is so important.

Although there are many components of optimal performance, among the most commonly cited by coaches and sport scientists alike are speed, power, quickness, agility, and stability. Most of the attention in strength and conditioning programs is focused on the first four of these components, which is a mistake. Without stability, you do not have the ability to display the other components. Let’s say you have the strength to perform a parallel squat with 300 pounds. If you were to spin yourself around several times to make yourself dizzy and then try to squat, you might be able to squat only 100 pounds. Why? You don’t have balance and control, and this does not allow you to display your strength.

Well, if we’re talking about walking from your bed to the kitchen to make breakfast in the morning, only a small amount of stability is necessary to keep you from falling down. But if we’re talking about a basketball player trying to fake and drive to the basket or a fullback trying to bust a defensive line, we’re talking about a much higher stability requirement. Those requirements become greater as a high school athlete progresses to college and professional levels. In other words, as an athlete moves to higher levels of competition, their balance and control also need to be improving to higher levels. If they are not improving, or even worse, if they are regressing, that raises a red flag and we need to figure out the cause.This is why BFS has teamed with Dr. Peter G. Gorman, president of Microgate USA, the company that created OptoJump™.

Testing is a valuable tool for athletic development.

Testing helps to monitor training and motivate athletes. If you know which tests are appropriate, and you have the proper testing tools, the process doesn’t have to be an ordeal. Using an OptoJump 1-meter system, a coach could test the vertical jumps of 40 athletes in as little as 10 minutes. At BFS we believe that testing should be performed every two to four weeks, from something as simple as timing your dot drill performance, to running the 40-yard-dash. We have developed the BFS Standards, which provide guidelines on what both male and female athletes should strive to reach for their age group.

Beginning Protocols

Balance Functional Stability Protocols have been established and are in use in a number of pilot schools across the USA. Student and athletes can be started simply and with no expense with standing on a single foot and marching in place protocols.

BFS Opto Jump Articles

Learn about using the OptoJump one-meter system to measure your march in place test with Olympic level accuracy. Read more about the importance of accurately measuring your students and athletes progress throughout their development.

Balance Functional Stability Protocols

Static Balance Protocol

Balance Control: The Self Check Program That Nobody Can Afford To Do Without We can employ this protocol to ensure that balance control is improving. In the world of sport players must make critical decisions instantly and at high rates of speed. Therefore, loss of balance control and impaired reflexes, whether caused by neurological, anatomical or a metabolic impairment, can produce damaging results. Loss of balance control, which covers dizziness and impaired reflexes, is the key whether sub clinical or blatantly obvious. To help with understanding loss of balance control the static balance protocol has been devised. Done in stages the subject must finish a stage fully before proceeding to the next.

Stages of Static Control

1. Stand on both legs with eyes open facing forward.

2. Stand on both legs with eyes closed facing forward. This is also known as Romberg’s or the drunk driving test.

3. Stand on one leg with eyes open for 15 seconds. If you do not complete the full 15 seconds note the time of ability.

4. Repeat on opposite leg.

5. Repeat steps three and four with eyes closed.

REMEMBER we do not allow advancement to the next level unless can fully complete the previous level. If the environment warrants it and there are spotters for the person being tested we can repeat the above stages employing additional instability at the same time.

March In Place Balance Protocol Balance Control: The Self Check Program That Nobody Can Afford To Do Without

We must all remember that balance and coordination is controlled and influenced by, visuo spatial ability, vestibular/inner ear, and tactile sense/proprioception. The March in Place test is done first with eyes open so that we can get a baseline for the participant. We then perform MIP with eyes closed so that any changes can be recorded. When you think about it the participant should be able to be as effective with their eyes closed. Differences seen are the result of body imbalances that could not be compensated for by proprioceptive ability. It is these imbalances, that can only be seen with dynamic testing, that prevent participants from reaching optimal performance. Once identified, these imbalances are corrected with our BFS training program

1. Start in a jump stance, mark your starting position and concentrate on the 6 absolutes.